Announcing RO-Crate 1.3
23 June 2026 | By Eli Chadwick
RO-Crate 1.3 has just been released!
Permalink: https://w3id.org/ro/crate/1.3
Cite as: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20720080
This release is extremely similar to 1.2 and upgrading will be trivial for most use cases. The changes primarily affect those describing computational workflows with RO-Crate, either using the Workflows and Scripts chapter or the Workflow RO-Crate profile and its derivatives.
The RO-Crate 1.2 Specification Quick Reference remains entirely valid for 1.3.
Updates to Bioschemas URIs in the RO-Crate JSON-LD context
The RO-Crate JSON-LD context includes a small number of terms from the Bioschemas vocabulary that are used to describe computational workflows: ComputationalWorkflow, FormalParameter, input, and output. The Bioschemas project has now established canonical, resolvable URIs for all of these terms, and RO-Crate 1.3 updates the context accordingly.
The table below shows the URIs for these terms in the last three minor versions of RO-Crate.
| Term | RO-Crate 1.3 context | RO-Crate 1.2 context | RO-Crate 1.1 context |
|---|---|---|---|
| ComputationalWorkflow | https://bioschemas.org/terms/ComputationalWorkflow | https://bioschemas.org/ComputationalWorkflow | https://bioschemas.org/ComputationalWorkflow |
| FormalParameter | https://bioschemas.org/terms/FormalParameter | https://bioschemas.org/FormalParameter | https://bioschemas.org/FormalParameter |
| input | https://bioschemas.org/terms/input | https://bioschemas.org/properties/input | https://bioschemas.org/ComputationalWorkflow#input |
| output | https://bioschemas.org/terms/output | https://bioschemas.org/properties/output | https://bioschemas.org/ComputationalWorkflow#output |
Note that ComputationalWorkflow and FormalParameter did not have URI changes between 1.1 and 1.2, whereas input and output had URI changes between all three versions.
The Workflow RO-Crate and Workflow Run RO-Crate profiles will be updated to incorporate these changes in the coming weeks.
Schema.org version update
The version of Schema.org on which the RO-Crate context is based has been updated to v30.0 for RO-Crate 1.3. This update adds many new terms and does not remove any, so it is entirely backward compatible.
None of the new terms are used in the 1.3 specification. Some of them may however be of interest to profile creators, including:
- AuthenticateAction
- Certification
- Credential
- Error
- InstantaneousEvent
- LoginAction
- OperatingSystem
- RuntimePlatform
- pronouns
- various types of source for digital objects to be used with digitalSourceType
- other properties associated with the classes above.
Upgrading from 1.2 to 1.3
A crate that conforms to RO-Crate 1.2 can be updated to 1.3 by simply updating the conformsTo and @context. No other changes are required to the JSON-LD metadata.
RO-Crate consumers/implementers who utilize the RDF representation of crates should take note of the changes to Bioschemas term URIs and be prepared to handle the previous URIs when reading older crates.